A&M Consolidated Advances to State Title Game

ROUND ROCK, Texas -- Wolverine has been A&M Consolidated's rallying cry all season long. When they trailed Corpus Christi Carroll 1-0 in the top of the seventh the Tigers acted like the stubborn mammal that serves as the mascot for the University of Michigan, scoring their only two runs of the game to come back and advance to the state championship game.

Consol to beat Corpus Christi Carroll 2-1 in a Class 5A state semifinal game at Dell Diamond Friday afternoon.

"It (the Wolverine mindset) definitely helps us. It started right before playoffs started and we've been living on through this whole time, it's crazy," said Tiger pitcher Riley Ferrell, who struck out seven in six innings of work.

Carroll put up the first run of the game in the fifth inning on a Riley Ferrell wild pitch that allowed Trey Rodriguez to score from third base. Carroll would take that 1-0 lead to the seventh inning.

Consol would get down their final strike before scoring. Cody Hamilton got a ball past Carroll first baseman Brandon Burns. That allowed Kyle Nelson to score from second base to tie the game at one.

Hamilton said, "I just knew I was going to do it. My team has faith in me, we believed the whole way through the season that we were going to do it, and I looked at Alec before I got in the box and was like we're about to do this and went in there and did it."

Alec Paradowski would come to the plate next to face relief pitcher Courtney Hawkins who was played center field most of the game. Hawkins, who was the 13th pick in this week's Major League Baseball Draft, gave up a single to left field to Paradowski. Hamilton would score on the hit to put Consol up 2-1.

"We were playing at Dell Diamond, it's a lot of fun, I just didn't want it to be my last game," said Paradowski, who went 3-for-3 in the game. "Cody stepped up and he put the ball in play and I got to come up with the big hit, it's a blast."

Seth Holbert would come on to pitch the seventh. He retired Carroll in order to send Consol to the Class 5A State Title game.

Consol coach Chase Mann added, "You preach to them all year about having confidence and believing in yourself and believing in your teammates and just take them one at a time and we talk about winning innings and we played seven one-inning games and we won the right one.

The Tigers will face Cy Ranch in the championship game Saturday morning at 11:30am at Dell Diamond. The game will be broadcast live on Fox Sports Southwest (Suddenlink channels 25 & 750, and DirecTV channel 678).

Comments may be monitored for inappropriate content, but the station is under no legal obligation to do so.
If you believe a comment violates the above rules, please use the Flagging Tool to alert a Moderator.
Flagging does not guarantee removal.

Multiple violations may result in account suspension.
Decisions to suspend or unsuspend accounts are made by Station Moderators.
Questions may be sent to comments@kbtx.com.
Please provide detailed information.

Online Public Information File

Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or fccinfo@fcc.gov.